George Floyd, the man whose death in police custody launched a thousand protests in 2020, has reignited a critical conversation about systemic racism and social injustice around the world. In 2021, almost one year after Floyd’s death, change is starting to happen.
Diversity
As protests grew over the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement took root nationwide, graduate students at Arizona State University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (SCCJ) wondered about what they might do on their own campus to encourage dialogue and understanding about diversity.
Christopher Rearley spent his life beating the odds. He was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at age 6 and was permanently using a wheelchair by 11. By the time he started college at 18, his doctors, knowing that his breathing capacity was only 20% of normal, said he would live only months, a year at most.
That prediction didn’t hold up. He started community college, then came to Arizona State University, defying his doctors’ prognosis.
Last Saturday, about halfway through Part 1 of the ASU Center for the Study of Race and Democracy’s two-part Impact Arizona lecture series titled “Race, Crisis and the Future of Democracy,” which was organized in the aftermath of the May 25 police-involved killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, the New York Times sent its subscribers a news alert that yet another black man, 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks of Atlanta, had died at the hands of law enforcement.
“Defund the police” has been a popular rallying cry at recent protests across the nation.
Originated by the Black Lives Matter movement and police reform activists, the slogan was introduced to the public last week and is quickly picking up steam with politicians, city councils and mayors throughout the country.
African-American law enforcement officers must balance two identities simultaneously during these complicated times, and each identity serves the other, according to a panel discussion at Arizona State University on Thursday night.
Five African-American men discussed the complexity of race in their experiences as professionals in the criminal justice system in a talk titled “Being Blue from a Black Perspective” at the Beus Center for Law and Society on the Downtown Phoenix campus.
The sixth annual ASU Prison Education Conference will bring together a broad coalition of experts and community members to discuss criminal justice and the transformative power of education. Organized by Arizona State University's Prison Education Awareness Club and sponsored by the Department of English and the School of Social Transformation, the conference is set for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, in the Turquoise Room of the Memorial Union on ASU’s Tempe campus.